You’ve heard it a thousand times – the English Opening is just a Hyper-Accelerated Dragon a tempo up! So the real question is, what can White do with that extra tempo? In this video, I shared a game of mine from 2015 in which I won using the rare idea, a2-a4!

The Symmetrical English may seem like a relatively straightforward opening, but it actually contains a lot of little tricks and nuances! In this video GM Eugene Perelshteyn exhibits how to deal with 5. a3, delaying e5 so as not to weaken the d6 square.

He also reviews some key strategic concepts. Most importantly, remember that the plan is to play d6, e5, a5 (to stop b4), and eventually Nge7 and d5.